Humanitarian intervention
growing acceptance of the idea that the international community (however defined) has an obligation to ensure that governments recognize and respect human rights within their own territories and that infringements of human rights should not be defended by reference to national SELF-DETERMINATION. Humanitarian intervention One of the more jealously protected norms of international life is that of NON-INTERVENTION. That is, STATES as sovereign entities generally claim the right to exclusive authority over what takes place within their own borders and regard any external INTERVENTION as a denial of the right of SELFDETERMINATION. At the same time each state under the norms of HUMAN RIGHTS is obliged to protect the rights of all persons under its jurisdiction. Humanitarian intervention is the doctrine under which one or more states may take military action inside the territory of another state in order to protect those who are expecting serious human rights persecution up to and including GENOCIDE. The period since 1990 provides several high profile examples of this, in particular the action by the UNITED NATIONS ( U N ) on behalf of the Kurds and Marsh Arabs in Iraq after the war of 1991 and in the former states of Yugoslavia. HUMINT Human intelligence, espionage. Hungarian Revolution (1956) An unsuccessful popular revolt in Hungary from 23 October to 14 November 1956 against Soviet political, military and economic dominance and the rigid pro-Soviet communist regime. It began with a student uprising in Budapest demanding the reinstatement of the liberal communist leader Imre Nagy (1896-1958), the removal of Soviet troops from Hungary and a changeover to a multi-party system of government. The firing by police on the demonstrators led to a general strike until Soviet troops left the country. On 30 October a socialist coalition government was formed under Nagy, who appealed to the UNITED NATIONS ( U N ) to guarantee Hungary NEUTRALITY upon its withdrawal from the WARSAW PACT. The USSR denounced the revolt as a counter-revolution and suppressed it with significant loss of life. Nagy was subsequently executed and control was reimposed under Janos Kadar. These events caused widespread indignation in the non-communist world, though public opinion was also aroused at this time, and distracted from these events, by the SUEZ CRISIS (1956). Hydrogen bomb Now more frequently referred to as the thermonuclear bomb, this was the second, and vastly more powerful, development in the field of NUCLEAR WEAPONS, after the ATOMIC BOMB. Unlike its predecessor, which depended on the splitting of the atom, it relies on nuclear fusion, in which two light atoms combine to form a heavier element. There was initially some doubt in the USA as to whether it should proceed with what jt called 'the superbomb'. In August 1949, however, a matter of years before the West anticipated this would happen, the USSR exploded its first atomic weapon, dramatically boosting the ARMS RACE, and this swept away military reservations. By 1953 not only the USA but also the USSR had the hydrogen bomb. In 1957 Britain successfully tested it, too. Hypernationalism Extreme NATIONALISM, a term coined in 1990 by the US international relations theorist John Mearsheimer and defined as the belief that 'other